Top Stories of 2012: Hefty price tag on repairs for One Montgomery Plaza

NORRISTOWN — Montgomery County commissioners were not happy to hear the news in November that repairs to One Montgomery Plaza – the building in which they, and countless other county employees, work – would cost upwards of $80 million to bring it up to par.

Wincing might have been the reaction most felt in the room, after the total estimated costs to repair One Montgomery Plaza and an accompanying parking garage were laid out during a special presentation before the board.

In totals, engineers from two different structural and restoration firms gave estimates on what it would cost to repair the buildings, ranging from $7.7 million to rehabilitate the Main Street parking garage to $80 million for the cost of replacing One Montgomery Plaza.

“It’s years and years and years of deferred maintenance,” said Montgomery County Commissioner Chairman Josh Shapiro.

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“This will no longer go ignored like it has for the last couple of years. There are a lot of rumors swirling around relating to the safety of our building. We would not allow people to work in a building that was unsafe. If protocols are followed, once work is done, we will continue to operate for decades to come and avoid having them fall into this state of disrepair.”

The commissioners reassured employees and patrons of One Montgomery Plaza that no one is in danger, but the longer the county waits to make the repairs, the worse and more costly they will inevitably become.

“It does not take an engineer to see the state of disrepair that we are in. I have to say, having been somebody who worked in these fields for many years, it’s just very hard to hear.”

The restoration architecture group Klein and Hoffman, Inc., based out of Philadelphia, was reportedly asked to perform a building “envelope” of the facility at One Montgomery Plaza. Cracking and sprawling of the building masonry, significant water infiltration and damage to interior finishes were named as just a few problems.

“There is cracking in numerous locations, the brick is swollen, falling apart from the inside and separating,” said Bob Bender, a technician with Klein and Hoffman. He gave an estimate of $80 million in total construction costs of the building replacement.

Janis B. Vacca, vice president of the King of Prussia-based Harman Group, a structural engineering firm hired to analyze the wider range of problems with the buildings, explained some first priorities for the commissioners, should they opt to make repairs.

“In our professional opinion, the garage is beyond its serviceable life,” said Vacca.

“It needs significant repairs, or, (to be) demolished and replaced. It was not built with adequate cover, drainage and other things that would give a garage a longer lifespan.”

According to Vacca, 78 percent of the concrete slab in the Main Street parking garage (where jurors typically park) needs replacement, with levels B and C in the most critical conditions.

“Your top and bottom slabs are corroded and almost entirely degraded in terms of structure,” she said.

By The Harman Group’s estimates, a “Band-Aid” approach to fixing the garage – including installing netting, similar to that surrounding One Montgomery Plaza — is a 10-year fix and would cost the county roughly $3.05 million. Longer-term repairs having a 40-year life expectancy could cost almost $17.7 million, and $18.5 million in repairs would give the garage a 100-year life expectancy.

“This is the manifestation of the previous administration’s misplaced priorities on how to spend money,” said Commissioner Bruce L. Castor, Jr.

“It’s now going to fall on us to find out how to pay for those things. It’s not as if we didn’t know what the priorities should be, we simply chose other priorities for political expedience. That’s the part that upsets me the most. Now, the three of us have to clean up that mess.”